“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that. I don’t know what it is. Greenleaf, Kim, and Saskia, they’re the ones trying to teach me. They keep telling me I have to clear my mind and not think too much. Which is impossible! I mean, just not thinking about thinking anything is thinking about something. You see what I’m saying?”
“That’s why I thought I’d come and check you out. I had a lot of the same problems. Tonight, I didn’t give you any time to think about what you were doing. Woke you up, threw you out a window, made you angry. You didn’t have time to think. You just did it! See? I’ve been through the same struggles myself. I told you, we have a lot in common.”
“Why do you keep saying we have so much in common? Who are you, really? Where are you from, really?”
“Really?” Her eyes twinkled, deep and blue. Despite his annoyance, Brendan couldn’t help but find those eyes very attractive. “I’m not from Quebec. I am from France. At least, it’s the first place I remember. I think I was born in the fifteenth century.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brendan asked. “You think? You don’t know?”
“Well, remember when I said we had a lot in common? I am like you. I was placed in a Human family.”
Brendan sat up. “You? You were adopted by Humans, too?” She nodded. “Who did that to you?”
“I don’t know.” She smiled sadly. “I am not so lucky as you. I never found out who my Faerie parents were. An old peasant couple raised me in Brittany.^ 35 That’s in the north of France, on the English Channel. They were hard-working people, salt harvesters. They always knew I was not a normal child. They found me on the beach crying in the rain. My real parents were nowhere to be seen. They took me in and raised me. They had no children of their own, you see. They had a son who had died young, so they called me Charles in his memory. As I grew older, it became harder and harder to hide how strange I was. People began to talk. They whispered of witchcraft and devils. The village priest became suspicious. I didn’t know that what I could do was strange or bad, and I started to feel ashamed. My parents’ life became difficult. So they did what they thought was best… ”
“What did they do?” Brendan could easily imagine what it would have been like to grow up not knowing what he was. At least he’d had Wards and glamours placed on him to hide his true nature even from himself. And he lived in a world that was a little more forgiving of strangeness.
“They put me on a ship to the New World.” Charlie’s eyes were far away. She gazed out over the lake as if she were on that ship now. “The passage was a long one. Many died but I thrived. I loved the ocean. For the first time, I felt truly at peace. I could sense the creatures of the deep swarming around the ship: the million tiny minds of the little fish travelling together in their schools like a cloud of lights in the water, the giant, clever thoughts of whales drifting far below. In the night, I would sit in the prow and the dolphins would come to me, pacing the ship, calling in their silly voices and making jokes, mocking me because I was a fish that couldn’t swim.^ 36 I found I could understand what they were saying. The sailors liked me because they said I brought luck. La Fortuna, they called me.
“We sailed across the Atlantic and into the great mouth of the St. Lawrence River, arriving finally at the tiny village of Hochelaga.”
“Hochelaga? That’s Montreal, isn’t it?”^ 37 Brendan had read his history. Canadian children had to learn all about the early explorers in school: Cartier, Champlain, Henry Hudson, and their contemporaries.
“Oui, exactement! It was not so big a town back then, just a little knot of huts at the bend of the river with a tiny church and a cross on the top of the hill. They needed people to settle there. Fur trappers and voyageurs came in their canoes, and the native people, the Iroquois and the Mohawk and the Huron, brought animal pelts in for trading. For a time, I was welcome there. I had some skills as a healer and they needed me. I liked the wilderness. I could run there and be free. I could speak with the animals and learn their language. I would be gone in the woods for long weeks learning about the wild places from them.”
“What happened?”
“Again, the priest of the village could sense I was different. He started to turn people against me. He made everyone think I was a devil and that my gifts were from Satan himself. He said I consorted with demons in the woods. The native people were friendly to me, but this only made the priest believe I was somehow evil. He put me on trial and made the villagers agree that I should be executed. Burned at the stake.”^ 38
“But you escaped.”
“Obviously.” Charlie laughed. “An Iroquois band raided the village and stole me away on the night before the burning. I travelled with them for many years and they treated me well. Their Shaman said she knew my kind. She called me one of the Old Ones. I learned much from her about how to control my powers. She gave me these.” She held out her arm to display the animal tattoos. “She told of a time when the Old Ones and the People were friends and shared the Earth, before a war between our races divided them.”
“Ariel told me a bit about that.”
“Ariel would know. He was there.” Charlie’s face darkened. “The Humans from the Old World had forgotten those times. They came to the New World with their cutting and burning and gouging of the Earth.” She shook her head. “Soon, there was nowhere for the Iroquois people to hide from the whites, and they became sick in body and sick in spirit. They forgot the Old Ways. Before that time, however, I went my own way, exploring the wild places. I found that I could come to the cities and live among the People of Metal for a while at a time, leaving before they noticed I didn’t age like them or was different. It’s easy now. The Humans don’t pay as close attention as they once did. More and more of our people came to this land. As I met more of my kind, I found a special teacher and came into my powers completely.”
Brendan was intrigued. “A special teacher? Who was that?”
Charlie shook her head, not meeting his eye. She became guarded. “One of the Ancient Ones. You will meet him in good time. He is coming to the Clan Gathering. But I’ve talked too much. The night is waning.”
Indeed, Brendan looked at the moon. The silver orb was small and low on the horizon out over the lake.
“I am going to tell you a little trick that I used when I was starting out,” Charlie said. “I learned it from the Shaman woman. Shamans are those who can see the secrets of the Faerie world. In every culture they exist: they’re called psychics, seers, and fortune tellers. The Iroquois Shaman used a drum to help her focus her sight. She taught me how to use music to do the same.” Charlie’s eyes were distant as if remembering the smoky interior of the Shaman woman’s longhouse, so long ago. Shaking herself back into the present, she turned her dazzling eyes on Brendan. “When you want to use your powers, don’t think about it. Instead, sing a song inside your head. Think about the words of the song and let your subconscious take care of itself.”
“A song? Are you kidding me?” Brendan asked skeptically.
“Ha!” Charlie said suddenly. “The Dawn Flyers are beginning! I’ve heard of this but I’ve never seen it before.” She pointed to the CN Tower above them. Brendan looked up and gasped.
He’d seen the weird extra bulge above the observation tower many times since gaining his Faerie Sight. Even now, he was amazed at how much of the city was invisible to Humans as they bustled about, completely unaware of the secret Faerie world that existed alongside them. He’d never had time to explore even a hundredth of the new locales open to him. Now he was astonished to see Faeries launching themselves from the tower high above, gliding out into the chilly predawn air.
One after another, Faeries leapt from the tower and sailed on the thermals toward the open air above the lake. They flew with gliders constructed of some silken material that caught the wind, lofting them like graceful birds in wide arcs here and there as they chased one another. He could hear hoots of laughter as they carved through the gradually lightening sky and down toward the distant mass of Ward’s Island.
“That’s… ” Brendan couldn’t contain his awe. “That’s just brilliant!”
“Yes,” Charlie agreed. “Brilliant.”
As they watched the Dawn Flyers swooping overhead, Brendan wondered what any Humans who happened to look up might see: flocks of birds hanging in the sky? He had no idea and he didn’t care. He was just glad he could see them. They were so beautiful.
Charlie stood up. “Time to go.”
“Go?”
“We have to get you home before your parents wake up and find you gone. What would they think of you running the streets with a strange young girl all night?”
Brendan’s heart began to pound. She was right. He’d been lost in her story and the glory of the Dawn Flyers. “You’re hardly young!”
“Man. You know how to charm a lady, Brendan!” She laughed and slid down the side of the dome. “Come
